The Hunt for the Mad Wolf’s Daughter is a historical adventure set in thirteenth-century Scotland. In this novel, Diane Magras chronicles the further adventures of Drest, the heroine introduced in The Mad Wolf’s Daughter. Drest is a fiery, independent young girl set on protecting herself, her family, and the lord of her land. Unlike most young women of the time, she was raised to be a warrior and so just may be capable of fulfilling those goals. Middle grade students will find plenty to enjoy about this book, particularly middle grade girls. While Drest clearly steals the show, the cast of characters includes several other well-imagined characters, particularly Drest’s family. The plotline sets heroes against villains in a very clear delineation of good and evil, honorable and dishonorable, and this makes it an ideal story for young readers.

The plot is exciting and moves along at a quick place. However, some aspects of the plot seem like they fall into place a little too easily and that things are a little too convenient to seem realistic. This will not be likely to deter many children from enjoying the story, since children often like tidy stories with expected outcomes.

Most characters in the book are richly-developed, but the lord of the land, who has a fairly significant role in the story, is helpless to the point that it seems almost comic, even though the author does not use a joking tone when describing his ineptitude. It seems as if he was maybe meant to be comic relief but the author never delivers any punch line so that you’re not sure if he’s there for comedy or just dead weight for the other characters to have to struggle with. His vanilla character is really the only downside to this book.

All in all, this is a good read. It is the second in a series, and you should not read this book without first reading The Mad Wolf’s Daughter. I read this one on its own and was able to pick up on what had happened in the first one, but there were huge holes that were left blank or just mentioned in passing that I am sure would have been filled by the first book. It is more of a continuous story in a separate book than a stand-alone sequel.

Review of an Advance Reading Copy

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Kathy Dawson Books

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language: 29 religious exclamations.

Violence/Gore:  A character considers killing another; report of characters chained uncomfortably for days; a few verbal threats; mention of a past fight; a few reports of deaths; report of past arson; characters find a village burned; description of how various castle defenses worked (in the glossary); mention of historical wars (in the author’s note); mention of historical sentences for crimes such as death or losing a hand (in the author’s note); an adult character chases a young girl and knocks her down; a character dodges crossbow bolts while fleeing; characters are chased by soldiers; a character pushes another into a burning building without description of injury; a fight with no major injury; a battle using medieval weapons with  a few deaths, but no details of injuries; a character drowns.

Sex/Nudity:  Characters hug a few times; characters hold hands several times; characters of the opposite gender sleep next to each other for warmth and to share a blanket.

Mature Subject Matter:

Bounty hunting; reference to the practice of forcing girls to marry for an advantageous alliance (in the author’s note); medieval battle; death.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

Characters drink ale; characters chew herbs with medicinal properties.